


Donkey Kong and Other Minor Disasters (Or Reasons Why Tony Can't Work When He's Sick)

by Ocean_Born_Mary



Series: Minor Disasters (Or Reasons Why Tony Can't Work When He's Sick) [3]
Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Don't leave Tony unsupervised, Keurigs, M/M, Mario Party, Sickfic, Tony Has Issues, Tony can't talk, Tony vs. Clint, Tony wants Steve, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:25:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ocean_Born_Mary/pseuds/Ocean_Born_Mary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the crazy dancing gnomes, and the pants eating Keurig, Tony's finally ready to admit when he's sick.  Really.  It isn't his fault that they left him unsupervised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Donkey Kong and Other Minor Disasters (Or Reasons Why Tony Can't Work When He's Sick)

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the long wait guys! I appreciate all the support and love you've given me! :) 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Avengers. Or the Nintendo characters. Oh well.

If that Eyebrow was anything to go by, his headstone was going to read, “ _Here Lies Tony Stark, Strangled to Death by a Man in Spangly Pants_.”

Or, “ _Here lies Tony Stark: Man Responsible for Captain America’s Psychotic Break_.”

Or… “Tony.”

Yeah, that would work too.

“If we get out of this alive, you’re going to therapy.”

Therapy? What for?

“Your need to please everyone, despite your flippant attitude to the contrary, combined with a total disregard for your body’s needs, leads to coffee makers, and gnomes…and this.” It wasn’t really as threatening when it was being whispered at you about a half inch from your ear because you were smashed into a closet with the superhero of your dreams…best to stop that train of thought before it left the station.

What Tony wanted to say was, “Technically, I didn’t give an inanimate object life this time, and has anyone else noticed that Thor and Barton seem to play decidedly large roles in all of these events as well?” The laryngitis prevented that. Instead all he had to give was an outraged squeak.

Good news was, he didn’t really have to filter his thoughts as much. Since he couldn’t speak, his sick brain wasn’t going to be making random comments about Steve’s backside.

Bad news was that nobody could hear his awesomeness. And he couldn’t defend himself. But mostly the first one.

“Quit that,” Steve hissed. “You’re going to make it worse, and that thing is going to hear you.”

Hmm…he didn’t know about the others then.

Tony went to sniff, thought better of it (didn’t want the _things_ to hear them) and wiped his nose on Steve’s shirt sleeve.

Despite the situation, there were definitely far worse places to be than stuck in the hall closet (which he didn’t even know about—Coulson was the one that used the brooms, and mops, and came home every other day with some new cleaning apparatus. The latest one apparently was some wet, dry, mop duster thing that he followed behind Thor with when the demi-god ate PopTarts). According to Steve, there was actually more than one hall closet. Which made sense. Because there were a lot of halls. Did every hall have a closet?

“Hey, no zoning out on me Tony.” Hmm…Steve hadn’t even complained about the misappropriation of his shirt sleeve. Apparently they really were going to die. A cold hand suddenly attacked his forehead and Tony attempted to slap it away. “Quit wiggling. I think your fever went up again. Did you take the cold medicine when I gave it to you?”

That was a dumb question. The cold medicine tended to knock him out. If he’d been sleeping, they probably wouldn’t be in their current situation. Possibly…but probably not.

“Anthony Stark.” Tony winced. Even not speaking he couldn’t get away with anything. Mother hen.

A loud crashing sound reverberated down the hallway, and the entire floor shook. Another followed, causing a bucket to plummet down from the shelf above them. Some superheros they were. Hiding in a broom closet. Everyone knew that broom closets were for….

“MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!”

“Tony, what is that?”

He was really glad that he couldn’t talk right now.

“That is not the giant gorilla with the tie that we were running from earlier, is it?”

The puppy dog eyes weren’t really working right now, though. Maybe talking would be better.

Oh boy. There went the Great Look of Disappointment again.

“How many are there, Tony?”

He tried to count, lost track, and shrugged.

Steve closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. Outside the closet, whatever creature was there stomped away, maniacal laughter trailing behind it. “Therapy, Tony,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Lots and lots of therapy. Hell, group therapy.”

Tony absolutely did not need to please everyone. He just needed everyone to like him. Oh.

“Twenty minutes, Tony, I left you alone for twenty minutes.”

Wrong. He left him with Barton and Thor for twenty minutes.

Which was long enough for the two of them to plug in an old N64 that they’d found at a garage sale last week while Tony sat innocently on the couch. Three controllers later and they were working their way through the original Mario Party (Thor‘s favorite game of the month: “ _Friends, this is like a board game on the moving box! What fun!_ ”) as Clint whined about poor graphics, stupid game play, and could they please play Legend of Zelda?

But Thor was insistent on playing the game with the cute mushroom man and Italian with a large mustache. It was followed by him saying how wonderful it would be if he could play the game in real life.

And then disaster struck.

Barton paused the game to go to the bathroom. Thor went to go get PopTarts. And Tony was left unsupervised.

He’d already been working on something similar for months, but every time that Jarvis had caught him doing it, the stupid program had locked down the lab. Luckily for Tony, Jarvis was having an all-day updating session (because Tony was grounded while he was running a fever and Steve wouldn’t let him near the suits anymore when he was sick—so today was actually probably a good day for Jarvis to reboot), and five minutes was more than enough time to hook up his modified Wii and slide in one of those Mario Party disks that Thor had become fond of over the past couple of months.

Of course, Steve had returned to the Tower at that point, chicken noodle soup in hand, only to find Donkey Kong flinging barrels across the lab as Tony hid underneath his workbench. At which point Steve had grabbed him and run.

Problem being…Tony had never turned off the Wii. And he had no way of telling Steve. At this point there were countless shy guys, and those block things, and…

“Mario!”

Fantastic.

Though he’d bet Shield would have to create an entirely separate category of paperwork for this one. New thought. Coulson was going to be the one to kill him. Not Captain America.

“Luigi!”

Yup.

He was so screwed.

“What is that?”

Tony tried to make a hand gesture that meant, “You should really play more video games,” but he was pretty sure it looked like he was a having a thumb war with himself.

“Never mind. We have to find the others.”

Steve opened the door and scanned the hallway, tugging Tony behind him. The genius stumbled, aching limbs protesting the quick movement, and careened into Steve’s back. Hmm…warm.

“What on earth is that?”

Tony stood on tiptoe to peer over the taller man’s shoulder.

“Huwah,” the giant stone rectangle grunted, grimacing at them. It was blocking the exit. Damn.

“Tony.”

“Huwah.”

Anyone who played the video game, ever, would have known that coins were required to pass the rock. Unfortunately for Tony, he was with the one man in the entire universe who had likely never picked up a game controller. Ever.

And it wasn’t from any lack of effort on Thor’s part either. Steve apparently preferred to read. Look how helpful that was now. Couldn’t find this stuff in _Once an Eagle_ or _Catch-22_ or whatever war related fictional paperback the man had sitting on the end table now. Though Tony had to admit, they usually made decent coasters.

“How are we supposed to get past these?”

Why the hell was he still asking Tony stuff? He’d banned the man from talking (not that it mattered, because his throat was so swollen it had decided to stop working), but apparently insisted on asking him questions that he was totally incapable of answering.

One of these days he’d learn his lesson and just take the stupid pills when Steve gave them to him. It would save them a lot of hassle. And paper work.

A scraping sound above them distracted Tony from his wandering thoughts. The panel directly overhead moved aside. Eyes peered out of the darkness above them.

“Dude,” Clint was grinning from ear to ear. “You are soooo lucky Natasha is out of town with Banner.” If it was possible, his grin got even wider. “Princess Peach is currently painting her entire room pink.”

“Princess Peach?” Steve asked.

Tony just shook his head impatiently.

“And Thor is using the Koopa Troopers as bowling balls in the kitchen. Just wait until Coulson gets back.”

“Koopa what?” Steve glared accusingly at Tony, who did his best to look innocent.

“Yeah, you know, the turtle dudes. Course, Thor can only catch the green ones, because the red ones keep flying away.”

“Flying…Tony!”

It wasn’t like they were the Keurig. They weren’t going to pee coffee on anyone.

But of course if they were all out…the laughing. There was only one video game character that laughed like that. Oh crap.

“MWAHAHAHAHA!!!”

Barton’s eyes widened. “I get to fight Bowser!”

Steve looked confused.  Tony attempted to mime a fireball shooting through the sky and exploding.

“Bowser?”

“Always catches Princess Peach? Big turtle dinosaur thing that shoots fireballs out of his mouth…hmm…you don’t think he can actually shoot fireballs, do you?”

“So this Bowser is different than the barrel wielding monkey?”

“You saw Donkey Kong? And he had barrels? Then Bowser is definitely shooting fire…we better get out of here before he shows up.”

“Huwah!” The angry looking rock glared at them.

“Guess we’re going through the ventilation shaft.”

Uh-uh. No way. As much as he’d like to be stuck that close to Steve, he was not climbing through a teeny tiny vent with Barton. He tugged on Steve’s jacket and shook his head.

“We don’t have a choice, Tony, we can’t get around the rock, and it sounds like that Bowser is getting closer. Besides, we need to figure out how to get rid of these things, preferably before Phil gets back from the grocery store.”

Tony knew how to get rid of these things. He just had to turn the stupid machine off. But his lab was a dozen floors down, and apparently the entire tower was flooded with pixilated creatures. He crossed his arms and shook his head when Barton dropped a rope from the ceiling.

No way.

Not happening.

He would not climb into a vent with Clint if it was the last place on…a giant fireball flew past his head and exploded over the stone creature.

“Huah!”

Oh, shit.

Steve all but grabbed Tony around the waist and tossed him up in the air, and hey, he was not a sack of potatoes! Clint caught his arm and tugged, Tony pulling himself up and into the vent. He sneezed in Barton’s face for good measure before Steve swung up on the rope.

“Why are you always sneezing on me?!”

“Natasha said it’s a sign of affection,” Steve shrugged, flinching as another fireball exploded below.

It was not a sign of affection! It was a sign of…of…this would be easier to think of if his entire head didn’t feel like it was going to implode.

“It’s a sign that you’re seriously messed up! What, now are you giving me the silent treatment?”

“He’s sick,” Steve said, replacing the ceiling tile.

“Isn’t that usually a qualifier for crazy stuff happening in the tower?”

“I mean he lost his voice.”

“Dude, that sucks. You had it, like, an hour ago. Did Donkey Kong make you scream like a little girl or something? OW!”

Next time he’d kick Barton somewhere else. Then they’d see who screamed like a little girl.

“Right, so we’d better pick up Thor,” Steve started using his ‘I’m-Captain-America-and-You-Have-to-Listen-to-Me’ voice.

This was about the time Tony would knock the man down a peg or two with his witty repartee, but, unfortunately, they were to all be deprived of his wonderful voice and brilliant mind.

“And then we can figure out what we need to do to shut it down.”

“I know what we need to do,” Tony said, but it came out as a thin whistle. There were no distinguishable words.

Clint snorted. Bastard.

“Of course we can get you a cup of tea when we get to the kitchen.”

Really, Steve? Since when did Tony Stark EVER drink tea?

And now Clint was laughing.

Fuming, Tony began following behind Barton. Crawling on his hands and knees, Tony figured it couldn’t get much worse than this. C’mon, if he was going to be stuck in a vent, couldn’t the universe at least grant him the consolation prize of Steve’s butt in front of his face? If Barton stopped suddenly and made him run face first into the archer’s behind one more time…

The panel below him creaked. And groaned.

As Tony fell through the open air, he tried to count all the ways he was going to torture Clint when he was feeling better. The air rushed around his ears and he pinched his eyes shut, waiting for the…

“Dear friend! I did not know that you crawled through the ceiling! Have you come to knock down the hooded men with me by tossing the turtle creatures?”

Great. Now he was being carried bridal style by a demi-god.

Distantly, he could hear Barton laughing hysterically.

“Oh, God, oh God,” the man jumped from the vent, landing on the table in a crouch. “The look on your face…” Apparently he was laughing so hard that he accidentally sucked in some spit, because he started coughing. Good. Idiot should choke on it.

“Friend Clint! You have come to play the game as well! I have made my very own ‘mini-game’ as we often play on the television. See those men in the colorful hoods? You must knock them down using these little turtle creatures!”

He was cradling Tony with one arm as he gestured with the other, and the engineer had no way of telling the giant man to put him down.

Steve followed Barton from the vent, but he didn’t appear to have any sympathy for Tony’s plight. “Thor, is everything alright?”

“Yes, indeed! I am having great fun!”

Well, at least someone was appreciative. 

“You haven’t seen a giant, fireball shooting creature, have you?”

“Oh, has the Bowser escaped as well?” Thor squeezed Tony in his excitement. “I would very much like to face the Bowser!”

Tony’s “Put me down, put me down, put me down,” only came out as an indignant squeak.

Completely ignoring him, Thor reached up his free hand and snagged one of the red shelled Koopa Troopers who flew too close. He immediately flung it across the kitchen, knocking down a pyramid of Shy Guys.

“I don’t think Koopa Troopers are gonna cut it,” Clint mumbled. Tony was pleased to see Steve raise his eyebrow in Barton’s direction. Ha ha. “What are you looking at me like that for? It’s not like I’m the one who decided to release a bunch of…” he gestured around the kitchen “…virtual things from a video game and set them loose in the tower. And if I had, it certainly wouldn’t have been anything from this game.”

“One thing,” Steve replied, tone even and deadly, “I asked you for one thing. I told you that Tony was sick, and that he couldn’t be left alone.”

Couldn’t be left…hey!

“Five minutes. I was gone for five minutes.”  Didn't look like that defense was going to work in Clint's favor. 

“You know what happens when Tony’s sick!” Wow. Who would have thought Captain America would loose his temper. One of the Koopa Troopers began flying around Steve's head clockwise. Was his eyebrow actually twitching? Okay,  Tony was probably safer not talking and hiding in the giant man’s arms. “He can’t control himself on a good day! Throw in a fever and I end up filling out forms for the next three months!”

Control? He was very good at control. And Steve wouldn’t have to fill out forms if he did what the rest of them had done with them. In fact, the last time that Coulson had handed him a stack of forms to be filled out, he’d answered them in hieroglyphics. For some reason, Phil didn’t give him paperwork anymore.

Tony started wiggling around, and Thor immediately released him. “I’m sorry, I had forgotten that you fell from the ceiling.”

Ignoring everyone, Tony started pawing through one of the many labeled ‘junk drawers’ looking for a pen and paper.

All he managed to come across was a tube of lipstick that must have been Pepper’s at some point…at least…he hoped it was Pepper’s.

Desperate, Tony uncapped the tube (Red Rum…really?) and started writing across the closest thing…the oven door.

“Oh! Are we playing the picture game?” Thor asked excitedly, even as he jumped for another Koopa Trooper.

“MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

A stray fireball flew into the kitchen and blew up the oven.

Momentarily blinded by the flash, and pretty sure that there was fiberglass sticking in places where fiberglass was never meant to go, he was taken by surprise when someone dragged him out the door.

“Move, move, move,” Clint was chanting, tugging him along by the wrist.

A barrel flew overhead and he got pushed to the ground. If he could have yelled, he probably would have, because Clint was on top of him and that was soooo not who he wanted there, and the oven shrapnel was pressing in deeper, but then they were moving again and he was in the elevator.

“Did you see the well-dressed primate fighting Bowser?”

Steve sighed. “You alright, Tony?”

Really. Back to asking the man with laryngitis questions.

“You’re bleeding,” Barton said, starting to pull out pieces of glass. Tony smacked his hand away.

Steve grasped his elbow and examined the arm with the worst damage. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but you have a couple of nasty burns.”

“How come you didn’t smack him?”

Really? More questions? Speaking of which…he’d dropped the lipstick. Damn. Now was a time that sign language would really come in useful.

“Because our Man of Iron feels for our Captain as I do for my fair Jane.”

He was not blushing.

“I think I just threw up a little in my mouth, ouch! Jesus, Cap, is this ‘let’s hit an archer’ day?”

“I would gladly let Jane look after my battle wounds.”

Tony would gladly end this conversation. Easiest way to do that? Push the button for the lab.

When no light appeared behind the chosen button, Tony pressed it again. And again. And again, and again, and…

“Tony, stop. One of those things must have hit a wire somewhere.”

Now was one of those times that he could really use Jarvis. Why did he need to reboot him again?

“Guess we’ll have to climb.”

Because following Barton had turned out so well for him last time. Falling down an elevator shaft was not nearly as likely to end well as falling from the kitchen ceiling. He was not Spiderman. He was not meant to be swinging off of things.

“Of course, I don’t think Tony will be able to climb down with his arm like that.”

Thank you, Captain Obvious. Hmm…if he ever got Steve Rogers out of his clothes he was so calling him Captain Underp…

“Thor, would you mind?”

Mind what? Oh, hell no.

The only thing worse than swinging down the elevator shaft was being flown down while cradled in giant demi-god arms like an infant.

Tony now knew that for a fact.

“Must we get rid of these new friends as we did the dancing gnomes and my coffee dispensing friend?”

“Yes,” Steve called down the shaft. It took a lot longer to climb down than fly.

Thor just sighed heavily and hugged Tony closer. _Suffocating…can’t…breathe…Uncle!_ Tony smacked uselessly at Thor’s arm.

“I feel the same,” Thor agreed, squeezing.

“Eep,” the sound cost him dearly, razors cutting down his throat.

Thor looked down at the sound, saw the strange shade of blue Tony was turning, and loosened his grip. “Are you like the color changing lizard that Natasha showed me at the Hall of Animals?”

“No!” Clint hollered. “But he does belong at a zoo.”

That man was going to pay.

It was rather easy to get into the lab, and with a sigh of relief, Tony hit the off switch on the Wii.

“That’s it? Just the power switch?” Clint raised an eyebrow. “That seems rather anticlimactic.”

“It won’t be if Coulson makes it back before we clean everything up.”

“It’s his fault, he should clean it up.”

It was so totally not. At least…not entirely.

“You left him alone,” Steve all but growled.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Clint held up his hands. “Tony’s your favorite,” he mumbled.

“I…I don’t have favorites,” Steve’s flaming cheeks said otherwise.

They were interrupted by the fireball that melted the glass and blasted into the back of the lab.

There was a split second where nothing happened.

“Son of a…” Clint breathed.

“MOVE!” Steve ordered, pulling Tony to the ground as another flaming ball flew over their heads. “Back to the vents!”

“Thor won’t fit!”

“He’s going to have to!”

“It is the Bowser! Hello mighty foe!”

“Thor, you don’t talk to it!” Clint was standing on his desk pressing on a ceiling tile. “This one, let’s go!”

“MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

Nah. He was good here under Steve. Oh thank God he couldn’t speak.

“Allow me to help you up.” Thor grabbed Clint and threw him upwards, the archer catching the edge of the opening and pulling himself up.  

Steve dragged Tony up, and hey, wrinkles in the shirt here, and shoved him at Thor. Fine. Be that way. Woah!

A little warning before a demi-god throws you up and into a vent would be helpful.

“Easy there, butterfingers,” Clint grunted, catching flailing hands and tugging. “Shit, Stark, you need to lay off the HoHos.”

Tony glared. He did not eat HoHos. At least…not the kind that Barton was implying.

One more solid tug and Tony was back in the vent, behind Barton’s ass. Lovely. This day was getting better and better.

Another fireball shook the lab as Steve pulled himself through the small opening. Thor began to lever himself up behind the Captain, only to discover that his shoulders were a little too wide.

“Friends, I believe that I will be unable to make it through.”

Thor was wedged solidly in the vent. His head and the tops of his shoulders were the only things that Tony could see. Apparently the demi-god’s arms were pinned to his sides.

Which wasn’t funny. At all. Oh, heck, who was he kidding? It was hysterically funny. Now if he only had a voice to make a joke about size and holes and…

“We can’t just leave you.”

Hmm…they were talking.  Stupid, wandering, sick-brain.

“You must! I will valiantly wait for you to destroy the television creatures.”

At least Barton was shaking his head. He felt exactly the same way.

“Video game characters can’t look up,” Barton lied smoothly. “Thor will be safe there.”

Eager to get out the vent, Tony nodded in agreement. His head hurt, and his eyes were watery, and he really had to…

“Dude, again!” Clint wiped the spit-snot mixture off the back of his neck where the sneeze had landed.

Tony shrugged in what he hoped at least looked like an apologetic manner. Hmm…Sigh-of-Great-Disappointment. He must not have looked guilty enough.

“I will get you back for this,” Clint ground out.

Tony sniffed, wiped his nose on his hand, and smeared that down Barton’s leg.

“Ahhh!”

Not guilty at all. Satisfied, however…

“Tony,” Steve scolded.

He did his best to look delirious (and failed miserably).

Another sigh. “Okay. Let’s get back to the kitchen. I’m parking you,” it was not nice to point, “there with a hot cup of tea. Clint and I will figure out how to get rid of these things.”

There was really no arguing with him. Besides it was kind of hot when Steve was bossy…Damn. He really needed to take a fever reducer.

Getting back up the elevator shaft with a mangled arm, swollen throat, itchy watery eyes, and, and, and…

“DEAR GOD, STOP SNEEZING!”

…was harder than it looked. He should so totally be whining about how everything hurt right now. If he had a voice they’d be hearing about his head, and his eyes, and his throat, and his achy joints, and his, his, his…

“Sneeze on me again, and I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

“Barton.” That’s right. Steve to the rescue.

“You try having him sneezing and wiping snot all over you, and tell me you won’t snap his neck.”

And here was where Steve was going to defend him. “Hmm…good point.”

HEY! He was so installing laser vision in the suit so he could burn holes through people with one look. It would be a good thing to have the next time he couldn’t talk.

Five minutes later, he was parked in a chair with a scalding cup of tea (He couldn’t demand coffee with no voice. Steve just ignored his hand motions.) and orders not to move under pain of grocery shopping with Coulson for a month.

Five minutes after that, Tony was swirling his cup in circles, trying to discover if moving it clockwise or counterclockwise would create a better cyclone.

“Bum, bum, bum, bum…”

He really was delirious. There was a green dinosaur with a saddle heading towards him.

“Mulump!” It’s giant tongue shot out, snatching up a little blue cloaked man who was passing by, swallowing him whole. A second later, a white egg with blue speckles popped out behind it.

Steve! Tony’s attempt to yell for his missing compatriot just caused the creature to turn on him.

Blindly, Tony reached for the fruit basket and began throwing the few items inside at the thing. It just kept sticking its abnormally long tongue out and snatching them from midair.

Desperate, Tony threw the cup of cold tea at it.

Instantly the image wavered, and then disappeared.

That was it?

Really?

That was a little anticlimactic.

And…possibly a little problematic.

Just to be sure, Tony filled his empty mug with water from the tap, and tossed it in the direction of the nearest flying turtle. The good news was, the turtle thing disappeared.

The bad news was, he got water all over Coulson’s Ipad.

Both the turtle and the Ipad sparked before they died.

Damn.

So yeah, anticlimactic, definitely, because, water? Really?

And problematic, because he was going to have to lug around buckets of the stuff all by himself since Steve and Barton had abandoned him in the kitchen.

Unless…

He was not rubbing his hands maniacally as he snuck down the hallway, past the squealing white and red mushroom, and into Barton’s room. And if he was…well, Jarvis wasn’t awake to record it.

The room was surprisingly booby-trap free for all of the archer’s suggestions to the contrary. Of course, he probably figured that he didn’t need booby-traps when he had threatened to shoot them in the ass with an exploding arrow if any of them even thought of setting foot in his room. 

But Clint would never know.

The tickle in his nose suddenly took control and Tony sneezed, snot spraying all over Barton’s pillow.

Okay…so he might figure it out.

But this was important!

Peeking back out into the hallway (looking for Barton, not Bowser), Tony decided it was now or never.

He dove under the bed, scrambling for the one thing that he was looking for…aha! Success.

In his hands was the super soaker that Coulson had threatened to confiscate the next time he saw it. (Something about shooting visiting dignitaries, blah, blah, blah, Tony tuned out at the words paperwork, and fill out, and behavior). The one with the backpack that held extra water and that could shoot over 150 feet. The one he had been told specifically not to touch, or, “ _I will break each of your fingers, Stark_.”

For a second, he hesitated, buuuttt…

Oh yeah. It was so totally going to be worth it. Once he got this thing filled up.

Ten minutes later, he was sneaking down the hall, the Ghostbusters’ theme song playing in his head.

Tony rounded the corner and immediately tripped over a rolling barrel. He managed to scramble up just in time to jump over the next one, and then slipped on a banana peel.

A giant, tie-wearing ape was beating his chest at the end of the hallway. Suddenly, a barrel materialized in his hands and…Tony dropped down face first, feeling the projectile pass over him. He scrabbled for the trigger, but aimed high and missed, having to roll out of the way of the next barrel.

The next barrel crashed against the wall, exploding. Shards rained down, bouncing off his already injured arm.

Ow, ow, ow…

Okay, so maybe it was a bad idea to leave the kitchen.

Tony depressed the trigger, waving the gun wildly, hoping to hit something.

Another barrel exploded over his head and then…nothing.

Ha! He’d beat Donkey Kong! Take that DK! Wait until Barton found out…

There were bananas and barrels all down the hallway, and puddles were forming on the floor as water dripped from the ceiling. How were they supposed to clean this up before Coulson got back?

New idea. Tony was going to bed. His throat hurt, and his arm definitely hurt, and his head and his…okay, so everything hurt. And he couldn’t breathe out of the right side of his nose.

Satisfied with this decision, Tony tromped down the hall, picking his way past banana peels and splintered wood. He didn’t encounter anyone on the way, and within minutes was sound asleep, cradling his newly acquired squirt gun (‘cause there was no way that Barton was getting it back).

“Tony….Tony….Tony….”

It was just a gut reaction. It was completely and totally not his fault that Steve got squirted in the face.

The eyebrow rose. Damn.

“Tony,” Steve said quietly, wiping his dripping face on his sleeve, “Why do you have a squirt gun?”

And we were back to asking the man who couldn’t talk questions. Geniuses. All of them.

Steve seemed to realize his mistake and appeared to be torn between apologizing for asking him a question that he couldn’t answer or lecturing him on his immaturity.

In an attempt to cut off the lecture (because, really, that was inevitable) Tony pulled himself out of bed (and ignored those little black spots in front of his eyes), and pushed into the hallway. It was just his luck that one of the little cloaked men was walking by.

A quick shot later and he’d proved his brilliance yet again.

Except…Steve was shaking his head.

“Therapy, Tony. Lots of therapy. Don’t give me that look! First gnomes that dissolve in water, then coffee pots that multiply in water, and now…this! Clearly, you have some underlying issue that revolves around water. Added to everything else…therapy.”

HEY! He did not have a water issue! Getting water boarded did not automatically correlate to water issue! It wasn’t his fault that water just happened to be a reoccurring item in all of these…oh.

So maybe there was an insty, bitsy, teeny, weenie, underlying issue.

But there was no way he was admitting that.

Even when five minutes later, Barton was echoing Steve.

“Water, again? Dude, you have issues…is that mine? That’s mine! You went in my room! In my… I’m going to…”

Tony’s finger slipped.

Honest.

Clint growled as he wiped his dripping face.

The three of them split up, meeting back in the kitchen twenty minutes later. Clint had managed to dissolve the princess and squealing mushroom. Steve had gotten the Italian brothers, and Tony was pretty sure that he’d gotten all of the rocks, and turtles, and colorful midgets. Which left…

“MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

“Friends, I have freed myself from the vent! And I have brought the Bowser with me, so that we may have an epic battle!”

Thor had apparently picked up Mjolinar on the way, and was swinging it rapidly in circles.

The giant spiked dinosaur-turtle hybrid appeared in the kitchen, mouth open wide. Thor released the hammer, watching it soar through the creature and into the living area. The resounding sound of shattered glass and a car alarm made everyone except the demi-god wince.

Fire tore through the kitchen, and everyone ducked as the Keurig on the counter exploded. Yeah…that wasn’t good.

“Mjolinar was ineffective. I must battle without my weapons, as in days past!”

“Or you could use this, buddy.” Clint tossed him his squirt gun. “Just aim it in his general direction, and pull the trigger. Just like when we went paintballing."

“I love the war of paint!” Thor eagerly squeezed the trigger as Bowser opened his mouth again. The video game character flickered once, twice, and then disappeared. “This has been great fun! We should do the battle again some time!”

They were so busy high-fiving each other that they totally missed the new person in the kitchen.

“Ahem.”

Coulson was looking a little worse for the wear. There was shattered glass in his hair, and the seat of his pants was a little wet. Tony didn’t want to speculate, but if he had to guess, Coulson had slipped on one of the banana peels and landed in a puddle of water. The glass, however…

“Would one of you like to explain why there is a giant, alien hammer in the middle of my car, why there’s a smoking hole in the hallway,  and there are bananas, and wood, and water everywhere, and both the oven and coffee machine appear to have been blown to SMITERIENS!”  Good thing he hadn't noticed his Ipad.

“Well…”

“You see…”

Tony sneezed.

Coulson closed his eyes and shook his head. “Mr. Rogers. Please make sure that Mr. Stark is given the proper dosage of cold medication and locked in his room…Barton, you’re on clean-up duty.”  

“But, I, why…”

“Because Thor doesn’t know any better and Steve wouldn’t have left him unsupervised and that leaves you.”

“I’m going to kill you when you’re better,” Clint hissed in Tony’s direction.

Tony just smiled.

He was going to get tucked in by his very own superman.

All in all…it wasn’t a bad day.

Sure he ached all over, and he had second degree burns on his arm, and he couldn’t talk.

And sure Steve was going to mother hen him to death until he was well enough to fill out the giant stack of paperwork that Coulson was certainly gathering now.  This time he was going to draw pictures for answers in all of the little blanks.  Until then, he’d let Steve lead him down the hall and back to bed.

But if this stupid cold killed him (because really, if he couldn’t speak  for much longer he was really going to DIE), he was pretty sure that would be okay.

Who was he kidding? Natasha was going to kill him when she saw what Peach had done to her room.

Yup. His headstone was going to read, _Here Lies Tony Stark. We’d tell you how he died, but then we’d have to kill you_.

Shuddering at the thought of just what Natasha was going to do with all her knives, Tony distracted himself with the thought of blue eyes and off-key humming from the chair beside his bed. And if Steve’s hand crept up to check his temperature, well…who said Tony didn’t like being sick?

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to let me know what you think and leave suggestions for other 'Minor Disasters'.


End file.
